Introduction
When was the last time that you did a backup of your computer? A month
ago, a year ago, never? Don’t feel bad; the vast majority of computer
users haven’t either. The main reason seems to be a total ignorance
for the need to do it, which quickly changes after your first hard drive
crash, or an irreversible Operating System corruption.

There is no Operating System, nor hardware platform
that is safe from minor or disastrous crash and data corruption. Even
the innocuous Palm and notoriously flakey Pocket PC needs backup. Fortunately,
both of these devices allow your backup and restore operations as simply
as doing your frequent “Hot Sync/ActiveSync” procedure.

Don’t you
wish that clever Microsoft and Apple had built that backup capability
into their high touted Operating systems? Perhaps it’s as well,
or not as well that their Operating Systems control this life saving
operation, considering the unreliability that some Operating Systems
seem to have.

And if you think
that because your system is new or you have a brand spanking new hard
disk drive (HDD) so a calamity is probably far off; it doesn’t
have to be an unexpected catastrophe to make you wish you had backed
up. By the way,

brand new HDD’s
do self-destruct, with in some cases no warning notice.

Have
you ever inadvertently tossed an important file, document or worse yet
a crucial application file, even a portion of the operating system? Don't
laugh, you eventually will no matter how careful you think you are; and
if you are a Mac user that still runs OS 9 Classic with OS X (10), it
is very easy to mistakenly trash an OS X component while you’re
in OS 9 while thinking your “cleaning up” file in the root
hard drive folder. This is a catastrophe, fella!

Don’t
be smirking over there Windows boy, you too can accidentally remove a
crucial file from your favorite OS by messing with the Registry file,
DLL library and a number of other places within Windows. Even a Windows
XP expert can make the ultimate step into OS suicide."...an
ounce of precaution is worth a pound of cure."Marc Cohen, originator
and host of the Saturday morning KABC (LA) radio Computer and Technology
Show, where I've occasionally co-hosted as a vacation fill-in, was using
his favorite Ontrack SystemSuite 4.0 to “clean up” his Windows
XP system. A little too much cleaning by SystemSuite also eliminated some
key files in the XP installation and the OS was dealt a fatal blow. Very
fortunately in this case Marc only had to reinstall Windows XP.

I do
NOT recommend using either SystemSuite, or especially Norton System Works
under any circumstances; unless you’re an expert
with them, and your system is backed up. It is worth
the time and cost you will invest.

In situations like
this, if you simply back up the hard drive, whether it is a Windows or
Mac OS computer, you could easily restore all to 100% health. The methods
are varied, some simple and some are not; but as the old saying goes “an
ounce of precaution is worth a pound of cure.”

In this multi-segment
story we will look at all the various methods, software and hardware available
to you to accomplish that ounce of prevention. Stay tuned; this is just
a little shot that won’t hurt a bit.